


Thirsty

by Ringshadow



Series: Joker's a Thirsty Bitch. [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: Batman is more confused than normal, F/M, Harley gets the Joker better than Joker gets the joker, Joker's Manic cycles, M/M, Mob Boss Joker, Pining, Pornhub has a superhero category, Possessive Behavior, discussing what's in Superman's boxer shorts, honestly IDEK but it was fun to write, not so much unresolved sexual tension as two idiots realizing there is in fact sexual tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 12:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18969388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ringshadow/pseuds/Ringshadow
Summary: “You just wanna surprise the Bat?”“It’d be nice.” He dumped a heart attack’s worth of sugar into his coffee.“Oh, well that’s real easy. Kiss him.”He’d been mid sip and choked before spraying coffee all over his monitor, wheezing once and slamming the mug down before turning the office chair to stare at her. “WHAT?!”





	Thirsty

**Author's Note:**

> "...MY name should ALWAYS come first!" - Joker to Batman, Batman & The Shadow: The Murder Geniuses

Coffee, the Joker had long ago decided, was both a benediction and the great equalizer.

 

He had good intel that everyone that mattered in his little world drank coffee. All his occasional roommates at Arkham did, though Ivy was predisposed to tea and grew her own either way. Batman and all his friends did, except maybe that green Martian man whose name Joker honestly couldn’t be bothered to remember. To be honest Batman was the only fun one out of that group anyway. Batman got the fucking joke sometimes.

 

These lines of thought, as always, came to the Joker as he sat at his computer, intermittently sipping coffee and leaning his face against the antique clown mug that Harley had found for him somewhere. She was good at things like that. She was most of the reason why his hideouts tended to have a certain _flair_ to them. And he was nothing if not flair. He had _style_. His current office space was dominated by an antique ice cream store sign that was heralded by a clown, both the name and clown done in restored neon. It painted his bleached skin in horrid colors. He fucking _loved it_. Not that he’d told Harley in so many words but she knew.

 

It was the fucking _terrible_ hour of ten AM and he hadn’t slept in he couldn’t remember how long, and he was slowly scrolling social media feeds and trying to figure out a scheme or anything that was the vaguest bit interesting. Being a homicidal maniac in Gotham was expensive. Doing side chemistry work for Scarecrow and money laundering through his mob-side businesses kept him liquid enough, the bigger problem was boredom. And proper excitement was also expensive.

 

Trying to find a way to irritate the Bat tended to have a five figure pricetag along with the potential cost of employees and even in Gotham it was so good to find hard employees. Wait, no. Reverse that, maybe. The point is, maybe he was in a rut. And his mania came in bizarrely predictable cycles, a regular sleeping schedule breaking away to days of mania and no rest breaking to fatigue like a marionette with cut strings. He was hovering above that point right now, the hanging scissors of Damocles just waiting to let him collapse into a flat surface for an indeterminable amount of time.

 

The door opened and shut and Harley padded in, looking far too soft for his office in pink pajamas with cartoon unicorns and an alarmingly fresh face. Thankfully her hair was still in pigtails or he might have tired to shoot the imposter. “I’m goin’ to bed Mr. J. I fed my babies, they won’t keep you up.”

 

He grunted, sipping coffee and staring at his screen.

 

“Whatcha working on?”

 

He sat back and looked at her. “We need new schemes. Everything’s been done.”

 

“We broke, puddin?”

 

“Pft, fuck no. We’re bored.” He’s too weary to be properly acidic about it, staring into his mug. “And just once this year I’d like to blow the Bat’s mind. He’s not impressed by anything anymore, much less surprised. It’s _galling_. Darling, have I lost my edge?”

 

She looked properly horrified, in spite of the pink unicorn pajamas. “Oh, no, puddin. Not at all! I cut out a dozen articles about our last heist. That’s pretty good.”

 

“Respectable.” He grunted.

 

“You just wanna surprise the Bat?”

 

“It’d be nice.” He dumped a heart attack’s worth of sugar into his coffee.

 

“Oh, well that’s real easy. Kiss him.”

 

He’d been mid sip and choked before spraying coffee all over his monitor, wheezing once and slamming the mug down before turning the office chair to stare at her. “WHAT?!”

 

She put up her hands. “You’re gunna have to forgive me for puttin’ on my shrink hat, Mr. J.”

 

In his fatigue he floundered. “As in your MD or did you steal something from that shrinking hero and not tell me because that might be useful.” Imagining the Bat’s expression if met with a magical shrinking, expanding Joker was at least mildly amusing.

“As in my MD.”

 

“Fine, what?” He was trying to mop up the coffee but it’s main ingredient was sugar. Clearly a few paper towels were not up to task. Figured.

 

“You’re both obsessive and codependent.” She said it patiently. “You’ve only been tangoing with each other for years, puddin. Kissing him will blow his batty mind.”

 

“You must understand how surprising this is, given you broke my nose over looking at other woman.”

 

“The Bat isn’t another woman, Mr. J. You don’t complain when I go out with Ivy. I don’t complain when you go head to head with Bats.” She gave him a fond look, picking up the box of makeup wipes she seemed to get specially for him. She used a different brand. “Now come here a second. You’re gunna pass out soon and if I don’t get that eyeliner off you’ll be all bloodshot without weed and that’s no fun.”

 

The Joker’s flailing was ineffectual and he ended up sitting pouting as she cleaned his makeup off, neat and precise, and it’s so domestic he just wanted to scream. It’s in these moments where he equally wants to find better ways to make sure Harley never leaves, and also wants to throw her out a window. “This idea has a lot of merit.”

 

“Of course, this idea has the simple problem that you haveta get close to him without him killing you.” She hummed. “Especially if it’s a real kiss. Beating people up is what he does, he could pummel you.”

 

“That’s how he says hello, I love you.” He grunted, rubbing at his itchy acid-green eyes and looking up at her. “I like this plan. Let’s figure out how to bell the Bat.”

 

She pressed a fingertip to his slightly crooked nose. “After you’ve slept, puddin’. Right now all he has to do to take you to Arkham is sing you a lullaby.”

 

“You do have to admit, it’d be in character. For me. Can you imagine him singing a lullaby. That gravelly voice.” He abandoned his mug and desk, and made it to bed before the strings were cut and he collapsed, barely registering the weight and warmth of Harley getting into bed.

 

* * *

 

The Joker vaguely recognized it when Harley got out of bed, registering her voice and the press of a kiss to his forehead. The sexual side of their relationship suffered when he came out of these mania spikes, but she never complained about his inconsistent performances. Those were the days when she went out with Ivy, and Joker respected that silently, sort of. She usually came back with weed and Ivy’s home grown coffee, the latter of which Joker spurned for a particular brand. The shit Batman drank. He had one of his employees pick it up periodically. The bleached skin made it hard to go shopping.

 

Eventually he woke up, eyes sticky and stuck together, dehydrated and feeling hollow and lost, like he needed to carve up something else to be properly alive. Happily (or not) the apartment and office was abandoned empty except for the hyenas, asleep on a rug in front of the fireplace this fancy place had. Working with the mob did come with the fringe benefits of not sleeping in abandoned buildings.

 

He was in the shower when the conversation with Harley hit him again like a lightning bolt and he sagged, one hand grabbing onto the shower fixture as his mind raced.

 

Kiss Batman.

 

Oh yeah. Oh fuck yeah did that idea have some _merit._ He can’t believe he’d said that word out loud but yeah, oh yeah it’s accurate.

 

He has to wonder if Batman knows the impact he has on everyone around him, including the ones he only greets with fists or gravel-voiced rage shouts. The only conversations he’d ever had with the Bats was from behind a wall of armed employees, or in alleys and roofs while he had a gun and a knife at hand. Or while in cuffs, bleeding and being hauled away, laughing bitterly because this never fucking ends, it’s not supposed to either. He and Batman are inevitable, a two-pendulum Newton’s cradle, shouldering each other and clicking back and forth. He’s too entrenched in Gotham now to stay locked up and he suspects Bats knows, and it only makes Bats more hostile.

 

Gotham hates the Joker, mostly for his youthful _indiscretions,_ but he’s learned what’s easier to get away with. He’ll never pass the court of public opinion but it’s easier to make money now anyway and the mob has just as much sway in this trash city as the mob. Whatever makes it easy to keep going and get to the next stormy night on a rooftop.

 

They’re a hilarious pair. The Batman is chthonic, a horror figure, a shadow cut free and terrifyingly huge, and the Joker, well. Average height and flirting with gaunt muscle, stronger than he has any right to be. The Bat could snap him one-handed, and isn’t that a particularly lovely mental image?

 

He got out of the shower and made a face at the foggy mirror, at the face not his own yet. Some proper make-up and hair product later he padded naked to the closet, putting himself in a suit and shoving two guns at the small of his back and knives wherever they fit without ruining the good tailoring. Face on and body on, he went to the window and put his hands on his hips, distorted lips pursing slightly and not reacting when his door was knocked on before it eased open.

 

“Boss? You have a few appointments tonight. Are you keeping them?” Always on eggshells. They knew he tended to shoot first.

 

“Pull the car around. I have better things to do tonight.”

 

* * *

 

There’s a certain fucking _delight_ to the fear that ripples out from him.

 

Everyone knows that Joker is straight insane and he leverages that for everything including business deals. Money property and drugs cross through his hands like water and he barely noticed. He noticed the people cringing back from him when he grinned or worried his scars, or when they noticed his pale-and-green visage looming in doorways, crashing meetings that he wasn’t invited to. It’s satisfying. Especially now that he can walk down the street and be bracketed by supposed strongmen who couldn’t do a fraction the damage he could do and the other people on the street moved, and a cop car slid by slowly and side eyed them before just grinning. Yeah.

 

Yeah if the cops know where he is then Bats will know soon. Good. Fine.

 

Harley’s flippant suggestion was starting to feel like the … not an ending. This can’t end without them both dying. Joker and Batman, their own weird mutually assured destruction. That thought train was shattered when the TV he was passing showed Superman and his mood catapulted straight into meltdown, abandoning street level for rooftops and leaving his bodyguards behind, heels of his expensive dress shoes clicking and skidding, standing on ledges and looking down at the streets and flirting with the call of the void.

 

He didn’t bother looking up when her heard the snap of fabric and the double-thump of heavy armor boots landing on the roof behind him. “Batsy.”

 

“Joker.”

 

Well, that was almost friendly! _Love you too, Bats_. He turned and let the wind from the street keep him balanced, considering the figure twenty feet off from him. “Oh, are you interrupting the night’s stalking to visit? I’m flattered, Bats! I’m even being good tonight.”

 

“You’re never good.” Batman’s expression was unreadable, the shadows making him a monolith with silvery eye slits.

 

“Oh I could be excellent for you.” He pouted, and enjoyed the dead silence that came from the larger man. Oh, Harley had the best ideas. The best. The most wonderful. He’s going to steal her some diamonds soon. Fuck buying that Russian mob pushed blood stone shit, but she likes them. The silence continued then Bats rippled forward, cape fluttering. “Now, now, I don’t even have a weapon!”

 

“You’ve got two guns and at least half a dozen knives.” Batman’s voice was the epitome of bitch-please.

 

“Okay, yes, but they aren’t aimed at you now are they?” He pulled the guns and aimed blindly at the street below and behind him instead. “Can’t we just talk?”

 

Batman, to his credit, stopped ten feet away. “About?”

 

“You drink shitty coffee and you need to evaluate that.”

 

That statement was a blindside. Batman was always difficult to read but the whole body flinch was perceptible. Joker was an expert in reading the Bat. Well as good as you could get, he thought.

 

“That said, let’s talk about Superman. Do me a favor, tell him to fuck off away from you. You’re mine. Not his. And he really doesn’t want me to visit that displeasure upon him.”

 

“Are you high?”

 

That made Joker laugh. “Permanently.” He holstered the guns and stepped backwards, off the roof and offering two middle fingers as he went down. Batman’s shout after him was indistinct, but he liked to think it was his name as he fell twenty feet then grabbed a fire escape, swinging off it, the toes of his dress shoes catching a ledge and flipping through the air. He hit the sidewalk running and heard Batman drop behind him, and paid it no mind, happily legging it into the night.

 

It’s flattering, it really is. He’s not the only game in this town and he knows through the grapevine that there’s other games actually active. Scarecrow’s up to something that Batman could break up before he makes three neighborhoods trip balls, for example, but no, Batman is chasing him. And he hadn’t even been doing anything!

 

He’s about to turn into an alley when a car jumped the curb and Harley popped the driver’s door, grinning at him. “Hey Puddin! Did you find the Bats?”

 

“Oh, baby, you know he always finds me.” He dove into the car, her moving to the passenger seat as he took the driver’s seat and slamming it into gear, burning rubber away from Batman, who’s on foot and just stops to watch them leave. Joker looked in the mirror and he saw Bats actually stand with his hands on his hips before pulling that god damn hookshot and disappearing vertically into the city. “Fucking hell. I may have missed my chance, baby, I’m all mad about Superman and took it out on him a little.”

 

“Do we need to go to Metropolis?”

 

“Maybe. Do you think they’re fucking?”

 

Harley had some not-food-colored coffee drink and almost choked. “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh Puddin. We are looking that up on Pornhub tonight.”

 

“Yes. Yes we are. Especially if you got weed from Ivy.”

 

“What do you take me for? Of course I did.”

 

* * *

 

Joker’s relationship with drugs, like most things, was complicated.

 

His brain chemistry wasn’t standard or even recognizable by most experts. Arkham had tried him on rainbows of drugs to hilarious side effects and reactions. Opiates, he’d discovered unfortunately, tended to make him blackout violent. Pot, though…

 

“You have to admit. If they are fucking it must be pretty.” Harley stated. Abandoning the still sticky main computer, her laptop was in bed with them. She was laying on her stomach propped on her elbows, only wearing his dress shirt. He was naked on his back, staring at the ceiling as he tried to sort through his thoughts. It never worked but at least he felt patient enough, in these moments, to try.

 

“No one knows what’s in his pants. It could be tentacles.” Joker reasoned.

 

“Maybe Bats is into that.”

 

He jabbed the half-burned blunt toward her. “Don’t fuckin go there. He’s mine.”

 

“See, puddin. This is what I mean. The co-dependent thing. Batsy doesn’t think he’s yours.”

 

“He better now. I told him tonight.” He took another drag. “He needs to get used to the idea. What are you hoping for out of this? A pretty show?”

 

“Puddin. You two need to fuck before you both spontaneously catch on fire from unresolved sexual tension.”

 

He coughed out smoke. “What the fuck, Harley.”

 

“What? Are you telling me you’re the only one that doesn’t realize that you and Bats are in love?”

 

“I am NOT in love with the Bat.”

 

She gave him a look. “I’m not saying it’s a healthy relationship. I don’t think you do those hun.”

 

He thought about her taking his makeup off, then thought about Batman pinning him to a wall. “I don’t even know what that is.” Fuck. “Does Ivy spike her weed? Why am I so god damn honest tonight.”

 

“She’d kill you if you said that to her face.”

 

He grunted.

 

“Also, because I brought it up so you’re actually thinking about it.” She kissed his forehead. “You looked amazing jumping off the building, puddin.”

 

He had no reply to that besides slapping the laptop to play the next video. At least they’d gotten this porn actor a really convincing Batman suit.

 

* * *

 

It’s super easy to find a jewelry to knock over in Gotham. The place is lousy with them, old corrupt money driving a need for blood jewelry. Their insurance rates, of course, were all insane because the criminal element considered them fair game. It was a weird thing to take a stance on, but Russian mob had never gotten a foothold in Gotham and the idea of Russian diamonds sat well with no one. There was one jewelry store that had signs up about ethical stones, and had so far been blessed with no robberies.

 

Gotham is so fucking weird sometimes, and that’s coming from the Joker.

 

He chose a store sort of at random. One he’d seen Harley looking in the window of once. She deserves pretty things, he has hired muscle, this is an easy equation to solve. One plus one is a shiny thing or three for Harley and some stuff to pass to the Penguin to fence. The Penguin, when not running his bar, was great at getting rid of shiny things you didn’t want to admit to where you got them from.

 

Should have been easy, even with the alarms and the cops. Smash and grab. He’s even got an earring and necklace set in mind. Diamonds and rubies, a motif that looks like playing cards. Come on, that’s just asking to get stolen by him, if you ask him. So he does. He’s almost pissed when one of his thugs flies by him and wrecks into a glass cabinet.

 

“Really?” Joker wanted to know, looking at Batman in the doorway. “This is what I get for shopping at this hour, _competition_.”

 

Batman might have rolled his eyes. It was hard to tell.

 

Joker sighed and closed the backpack, throwing it to his other employee. “Grab your buddy and get out the back.”

 

“Boss.”

 

“I got Bats. Go.” It’s as much mercy as he ever bothers with and he squared his shoulders, walking toward Batman, arms up and grinning. “So. Two nights in a row? Did you miss me?”

 

“I spent the day doing some research. I can’t find any history between you and Superman besides incidental.” Statements, not questions.

 

“Oh, Bats, baby, are you dense, I even spelled it out last night. I don’t like him because he’s too close to you.” Joker sighed and ran a gloved hand through his curls. “Settle an argument for me, does he have tentacles in his pants?”

 

“What.”

 

“Does he or doesn’t he, I’ve got twenty bucks on this!”

 

Batman’s expression was a little pinched, unmoving even as Joker walked up to arm’s reach. There’s no sirens in the distance yet and the street outside the shop is nicely empty, so they probably have a few seconds to talk unless Batman wants to punch him instead. “Why would I know what’s in Superman’s pants?”

 

“So you aren’t fucking?”

 

That prompted Batman into moving, and Joker twisted and arched. Batman’s fist clipped his shoulder instead of meeting his face, but he did get one cuff on, and Joker used that as leverage, getting in closer and tossing his other arm over the Bat’s shoulder. It’s hurried and sloppy and borderline a headbutt but it’s also somehow a kiss and he almost climbed up the black armored body to try to get closer, resisting the Bat’s startled motion to throw him off before just going still in what might have been shock.

 

The kiss tasted like coffee blood and pain and the Joker whined into it, shoving until suddenly Batman seemed to break, mouth opening and moving. Joker’s ass slammed into a jewelry cabinet before he was suddenly sitting on it and he wasn’t one to turn down a chance, yanking him closer with one leg, other arm stubbornly wrapped over him and defeating an attempt by Bats to cuff him fully, for the moment. Then as fast as it happened it was over, the Bat shoving off and away, lower lip bleeding slowly. It matched Joker’s lip so, that worked. He summersaulted backwards over the display cabinet, putting it between them, the cuff dangling uselessly from his arm.

 

“What the fuck?” Bats asked, sounding shocked.

 

Joker laughed, high and happy. Yeah. Harley had the best ideas. He could hear Bats’ brain burning up trying to figure out Joker’s angle, refusing to believe that kiss had happened just because he’d wanted it to happen. “Sorry Batsy. I hear sirens, we don’t have time before they get here. But you know where I am.” And he turned and ran, leaping the back row of cabinets and running out the back door, noticing that Bats didn’t even try to follow.

 

* * *

 

Joker kept the cuffs. He cut the chain and wore one like a bracelet, letting the Bat symbol show like it was an accessory with his suits. A trophy he told everyone flippantly.

 

“You gotta mark him back now.” Harley decided, watching him adjust his suit around the new jewelry.

 

He grinned at himself in the mirror. “I’ll figure out something.”


End file.
